I tried using their website contact form two weeks ago, and haven't herd a peep.
One of the clubs I belong to is trying to set up an air pistol range using some surplus target carrier hardware we got from another facility. We have just the pulley & crank assemblies and the pellet traps from fifteen Gehmann 180LP target carriers:
We are trying to get pricing for the missing pulley assembly that the trap attaches to at the far end, and the actual target carrier that goes back & forth. I've tried getting pricing through Neal Stepp (never got back to me) and Champions Choice (claim they only sell complete systems & apparently can't be bothered to inquire about parts). I don't know of any other US dealers to try.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. The club has a new building with air conditioning & wants to run monthly matches there, but they need some sort of target system. Resurrecting these would be a nice solution.
We have 10 of them. All pushing 8 years old and other than replacing a few motor-run caps at the 7 year mark (time rated part, easily replaced) they have not missed a beat.
Taken a few to bits to do the job - they are nicely made and use quality German motors.
Icar 3μF if anyone is curious on the part. You can get them off Ebay with spade connectors on the end. There are something like 4 different configurations of the same cap. The one from the factory has leads with spade connectors already attached.
Honestly, hand crank target changers are rubbish to use in a match.
You seem to think we have a lot more money than we do. Given that the entire Gehmann system costs ~ $175, we are hoping the missing parts are less than ~ $75 a station.
Both the systems you mention are ~ 225 Euros, -19% VAT & the exchange rate comes to about $200 a system plus shipping.
Honestly, hand crank target changers are rubbish to use in a match.
You seem to think we have a lot more money than we do. Given that the entire Gehmann system costs ~ $175, we are hoping the missing parts are less than ~ $75 a station.
Both the systems you mention are ~ 225 Euros, -19% VAT & the exchange rate comes to about $200 a system plus shipping.
You can't be completely broke if you have installed AC in your NEW range building! If you get the right gear first up, you are set for years. If you start out with "make do" gear, you will end up upgrading at some stage and then the total cost is higher. Why not start out doing a few bays, then add more when/if the numbers using it require?
j-team wrote:You can't be completely broke if you have installed AC in your NEW range building! If you get the right gear first up, you are set for years. If you start out with "make do" gear, you will end up upgrading at some stage and then the total cost is higher. Why not start out doing a few bays, then add more when/if the numbers using it require?
There's a lot of club politics involved. The "new" building is about 5 or 6 years old now, and was originally billed as a "multifunction" building to be shared between the archers, air gun shooters & classes. The building was pushed heavily by the archers, who installed nice (expensive) target butts, and the airgun crowd was basically ignored. The club has been putting lots of money into a number of major capital expense projects this year, and if we want to do airgun in the new building next fall, we will be hard pressed to get the money for the Gehmann parts. They've been running air gun matches in the .22 range (10 points), with (slow) motorized carriers on B40-4 targets. That facility is over 50 years old, the lighting was never designed for 10 meter shooting and the motors keep dying.
Yes, the Rika motorized carriers are spiffy. I shot at the national selection matches in Phoenix in the mid-80's, and they used the Gehmann hand crank system. They had 40 or 50 points, and it all worked just fine.
Gwhite wrote:
There's a lot of club politics involved. The "new" building is about 5 or 6 years old now, and was originally billed as a "multifunction" building to be shared between the archers, air gun shooters & classes. The building was pushed heavily by the archers, who installed nice (expensive) target butts, and the airgun crowd was basically ignored. The club has been putting lots of money into a number of major capital expense projects this year, and if we want to do airgun in the new building next fall, we will be hard pressed to get the money for the Gehmann parts. They've been running air gun matches in the .22 range (10 points), with (slow) motorized carriers on B40-4 targets. That facility is over 50 years old, the lighting was never designed for 10 meter shooting and the motors keep dying.
You have my sympathy. My club demolished our 5 bay air range 2 years ago to build another IPSC range. We were promised a new one but are still waiting. Some trees have been cut down and a bit of dirt levelled but that's all so far... We do hope to eventually have 10-12 bays range though.
By the way, I have heard that the Rika changers are not available now anyway (not sure if it's the end of the line for them or what?).
Rover wrote:I remember when the OTC used the crank target changer. It didn't exactly bust my hump.
Yeah - not much effort involved. And when the CAGP used manual carriers they worked reliably. You never had to fiddle with the buttons because your target didn't make it all the way to the backstop. I'll take a little bit of physical effort over mental distraction every time.
j-team wrote:By the way, I have heard that the Rika changers are not available now anyway (not sure if it's the end of the line for them or what?).
I would guess that they do batches of them as the demand requires. The production is probably farmed out I would guess. Rika might do final assembly and testing?
j-team wrote:You have my sympathy. My club demolished our 5 bay air range 2 years ago to build another IPSC range. .
>:| IPSC is the worst.
Gwhite wrote:There's a lot of club politics involved. The "new" building is about 5 or 6 years old now, and was originally billed as a "multifunction" building to be shared between the archers, air gun shooters & classes. The building was pushed heavily by the archers, who installed nice (expensive) target butts, and the airgun crowd was basically ignored.
Keep fighting that good fight. I was an archer once.
The building that I used to shoot Archery in for interschool champs is now an Airgun Range. (Auckland Parafed)
Slowly but steadily you have to be the change you want to see in the world. A bit here and a bit there and you'll be on your way.
Next step for my club is to upgrade the lighting at the target end of the range - old fittings and the tubes are an odd length. Going to go to standard length fittings.
j-team wrote:By the way, I have heard that the Rika changers are not available now anyway (not sure if it's the end of the line for them or what?).
Given the choice I would always go for the Haering EL3 anyway. I have heard that Haering did have a dodgy batch of control boards once, but I've never come across a faulty one.
I cannot say the same about Rika changers. I've seen many faulty ones.
David Levene wrote:
Given the choice I would always go for the Haering EL3 anyway. I have heard that Haering did have a dodgy batch of control boards once, but I've never come across a faulty one.
What about the buffers on the Haering? Do they last or do you need to replace them at regular intervals?
David Levene wrote:
Given the choice I would always go for the Haering EL3 anyway. I have heard that Haering did have a dodgy batch of control boards once, but I've never come across a faulty one.
What about the buffers on the Haering? Do they last or do you need to replace them at regular intervals?
I've not seen (or heard of) any problems with them.
At my local club we have a set of 5 where both the pellet catcher end and the complete firing point table can be pushed up to the ceiling to free the range for other shooting. I suspect that stretches the strings a bit more than on a fixed setup so, once or twice a year, they need to be tightened using the clever little hook arrangement, but that's about all.
SamEEE wrote:
Slowly but steadily you have to be the change you want to see in the world. A bit here and a bit there and you'll be on your way.
That's not something one would normally say to a person thrice his age. Besides, politics and tendencies in Massachusetts might be different from those in New Zealand.
SamEEE wrote:
Slowly but steadily you have to be the change you want to see in the world. A bit here and a bit there and you'll be on your way.
That's not something one would normally say to a person thrice his age. Besides, politics and tendencies in Massachusetts might be different from those in New Zealand.
Yeah you're probably right on both the count of my age (27) and locality.
Although I don't think I am wrong in that you have to do what you can to spin your resources out and things make take quite a long time. Long term planning can be hard when politics steers your hand.
We got a grant for the target changers which also helped as well as a good price. Also bear in mind I have used nothing other than electrically powered target changers. Some repurposed windscreen wiper motors!
Thinking of the Gehmann system you could have something made up. It's probably not rocket surgery and might work out cheaper and would be helping local economy.
May be applying for grants is not a bad idea in US either. Just recently there was an article in the Washington Post claiming that "Gun industry’s helping hand triggers a surge in college shooting teams," which mentioned grants given out by NSSF, MidwayUSA, etc.
